


Preventative Medicine

by sanguinity



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Handcuffed Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan lives in the hope that one of these days, Sherlock is going to learn to use his words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preventative Medicine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hophophop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/gifts).



> Written in more lighthearted days for the prompt, "handcuffed together". 
> 
> Originally posted at [tumblr](http://sanguinarysanguinity.tumblr.com/post/80630935843/5-and-or-9-elementary-and-or-tscc-condolences-on-your).

"Watson! Texting your boyfriend is not the point of the exercise!" Sherlock lunged for Joan’s phone while she attempted to send a text one-handed, one arm holding him off and the other outstretched to keep her phone away from him.

"Sherlock, if you chip my ulna with all your flailing…" She looked away from her phone, grabbed his handcuffed hand with her own, and twisted it into a wristlock. His body immediately went whip-taut as the rotation overloaded each joint in turn: wrist, elbow, and shoulder. "Stay  _still_ ,” she growled at him.

"Nice jointl— _ow!_ ”

"I did not hurt you, you big baby." She hit  _send_  and slid the phone back into her pocket. “ _First_ ,” she said, letting go of his hand, “if any bad guy is foolish enough to handcuff us together and remove from the premises anything that I might use to shim or pick the cuffs—where do you even find the time for this _,_  Sherlock!?—and yet still  _leaves me in possession of my phone_ , you can damn well believe that I will be texting Marcus with it.”

Sherlock’s mouth turned down in an exaggerated pout.

She rolled her eyes at him. “ _Second_ , if we were in such a scenario and you believed there was any urgency, it wouldn’t much matter what I did, because you would be dislocating your thumb and slipping your cuff in a hot second.  _Which I do not approve of,_  by the way. Your hands are going to be crippled with arthritis by the time you’re sixty, if you keep that up.”

"Beekeepers—" he began.

"Oh, do  _not_ cite the studies on bee venom and arthritis at me! Prohylactic care is always preferable to palliative care! And you will live to see old age,” she cut him off again, “if I have to die myself to get you there.”

Sherlock recoiled. “Watson,” he protested, his eyes wide and offended, “your life is far more valuable—”

"Then perhaps you should be treating yours with more care." She cut him off with a look. "Do not test me _._ ”

He glared at her; she glared right back. 

"And if I were unconscious?" he finally asked. "Unable to dislocate my thumb and slip my cuff?"

She sighed. “I’d dislocate it for you.”

He smiled nastily at her. “I had no idea you let your Hippocratic oath expire along with your license.”

"You know very well we both have better odds of getting out alive if the conscious person has two uninjured hands." Joan’s phone pinged. "Marcus says he’s in a meeting, he’ll swing by in an hour and a half."

"Well, then we’ll just ask our hypothetical attacker to hold off on killing us for the next ninety minutes, if he’d be so kind."

She gave him an unimpressed look. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

"I told you, Watson, this is a training exercise—"

"No. This is the most ridiculous, trumped-up excuse of a training exercise I have ever seen. This is—" She stopped, visibly collecting herself. "You know what? I’m going to go up to the roof, sit in the sunshine, and watch the bees until Marcus gets here. And  _you_ —” she brought up her hand, which dragged his up as well, “—unless you produce the key or some other medically-approved method of getting out of these, are going to come with me. Once there, you can either sit and watch the bees with me, or you can tell me why you so badly needed my attention. I really don’t care which, but I can tell you that the listening part is going to go much better if you uncuff me first.”

They glared at each other for a few moments more, before Sherlock folded and, with an aggrieved sigh, dug the key out of his pocket.

"Thank you, Sherlock," she said, when she had her wrist back again. There was no warmth in her voice. "Now I am going to go up to the roof, and you can join me whenever. Although if you are the genius you make yourself out to be, I recommend giving me fifteen minutes to cool down first."

"Aren’t you going to text Bell back?" he called after her, as she started to stump up the stairs.

"No," she called back down at him. "Because my so-called partner has been pissing me off lately, and I could do with an afternoon out.” At the first landing she shouted over the railing, “Fifteen minutes, Sherlock!”

By the time he joined her on the roof, she was seated in front of the  _watsonia_ colony, bundled up in her red house sweater. 

"Good, you’re here," she said as he sat beside her. She didn’t look at him, but rewrapped her cardigan more tightly around herself. "So talk."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Palliative Care (I'm FINE remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227012) by [amindamazed (hophophop)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/amindamazed)




End file.
